Home-made sausages: four recipes and four people

How many men does it take to create home-made sausages? Three: a Brit, a Spaniard and a Frenchman. And the photographer.

Right, so I will try to avoid saying that today was a sausage party! But it’s difficult, because there were 20 kilos of meat waiting to be squeezed down an intestine – what do you call that? In any case, it wasn’t an easy affair – Paul, my boss, let me sneak a peek into his home-made-sausage-making-with-friends-on-a-sunny-Sunday rendez-vous. It was no small enterprise. But the sun was shining and the guys were totally up for it.

Today I learned that what makes good sausages good is not the meat; it’s everything you mix the meat with before squeezing it down the tube. So today four different ones were going to be made – a Hot Italian, a Chorizo, a Sicilian, and a French garlic one. Just a heads-up, no recipes from me here today – it is going to be a feast for the eyes. All the four recipes had a huge variety of spices and herbs, garlic, lemon zest, and more. But there’s plenty on the wide web if you ever get down to making these things yourselves.

So the mix for the hot Italian was first.

Beautiful lemon-lime zest.

The leftovers… what to do, what to do?

A feast of spices.

The hot Italian one had white wine.

The Sicilian one had red wine. And cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. Which produced this work of art.

The Chorizo’s top ingredient was fennel seeds. The red pepper and fresh parsley made for yet another great colour bomb.

While I was busy with everything but cooking, the guys prepared the French garlic one too (weirdly enough, it had sugar in it!). And there you have them.

By that time, probably just like you, I had forgotten why we are doing this in the first place – the meat!

Lots and lots of meat.

Mixing it all together really did look like men’s work. And I didn’t even stay until they were done with all the meat.

It was time to bring in the machine that would do all the squeezing – no idea what it’s called. It was a nice reminder of my childhood in the mountains when we would use the same thing but a different version, attach it to the table and throw all kinds of things in there – tomatoes and peppers mainly to prepare ljutenitsa, but also meat and what not. Sweet flashback.

This was a slightly more modern version. It took a lot of precision, especially with the timing, but it worked out quite nicely. After all, it took three men…

At least I know what can potentially be found in sausages. Not sure my dear Albert Heijn uses the same recipes…Once made, the sausages were immediately put in ziplock bags and put in the freezer (to limit the bacteria, Paul said).

I couldn’t be there until the end of the enterprise but it sure was impressive. I wonder when I will have this kind of patience but hopefully some day 🙂 . Happy Sunday!